Christ-centered thoughts and studies

Devotional: ‘Create in Me a Clean Heart’

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)

The Bible says that David was a man “after God’s own heart.” Even while still yet a boy, there was something special about David that set him apart from all the others. Yet, like the rest of us, David also had a heart that could sin. The prophet Jeremiah tells us that our heart is “… deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…” (see Jeremiah 17:9) How true that is. Though David’s heart thirsted for God, it also had a taste for sin.

In many of our Bibles there is a caption at the beginning of this Psalm which says: “A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” Scripture teaches us that there was a moment in David’s life when he allowed his lust to get the better part of him and cause him to commit adultery and murder. In one moment of spiritual weakness, David found himself doing things that he never thought that he would do.

Though we are new creations in Christ, we still struggle with sin. We learn from the book of Galatians that there is a constant spiritual battle in our inner man. Paul writes, “For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” (see Galatians 5:17) Therefore, because we constantly struggle with sin, we must constantly seek to be filled with the Spirit so that we will not be tempted to fulfill the lusts of our flesh.

In addition, we must confess our sins immediately as soon as they occur.

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:5-9)